Marketization contested: the Santa Capelina in Nice

As every
1st of May for the past 20 years, the Santa Capelina is celebrated in Nice on
the Rauba Capeu. Fish soup, hand-made hats and the Santa are its main
ingredients. The Batucada play all along the day giving rhythm to the
celebration.

This year,
hanging on a wall, a sentence remembers that “il est evident que la Santa
Capelina n’est pas une marchandise” (“it is clear that the Santa Capelina is
not a goods”). As I will soon discern, the troupe from a French private
television who filmed for the first time the event last year, sold the images
to a hotel chain. The Santa Capelina and its participants have been transformed
into the testimonials of the authenticity of Nice, inviting tourists to
discover the genuineness of the city. The event has been appropriated, détourné
and used for one of the purposes that the event itself contests: the marketization
of festive events for (tourist) consumption. Hats contesting this misappropriation
appear among the others.